Reports are coming in saying Apple is rolling out iWork for iCloud Beta access to non-developers, suggesting the company is offering the online productivity suite to anyone with a valid Apple ID.

A number of AppleInsider readers have received email invitations from Apple to try out a "new iCloud feature" in iWork for iCloud, including non-developers. It is unknown at this time how many invites Apple is sending out, or how the participants are being selected.

Available for developers, including those with free dev accounts, since early July, iWork for iCloud is Apple's online productivity suite that offers up Pages, Numbers and Keynote in an experience optimized for the Web.

The service was first announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and works with Safari, Chrome and Internet Explorer.

iWork for iCloud beta running in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

A portion of the email sent by Apple's iWork Team:

We'll soon be introducing a new and exciting feature to iCloud. It's called iWork for iCloud and it's a suite of apps ? pages, numbers, and keynote ? that make it easy for anyone with an iCloud account create and edit great-looking documents, spreadsheets, and presentations right on the web.

We'd like to invite you to be one of the first to try it, so were giving you early access to the iWork for iCloud beta. All you have to do is sign in to iCloud on a Mac or a PC using the current version of Safari, Chrome, or Internet Explorer. Then just click on Pages, Numbers, or Keynote and you're off.

It appears that the service is nearly fully functional, with syncing and document imports intact. Apple has not set a release date for the final version of iWork for iCloud.

If Apple can get the security right and an elegant balance of powerful features without compromising ease of use this could easily replace the Microsoft Office suite for a lot of corporate users. Office is really the only feather in their cap these days.

No invite, but I logged into iCloud and the iWork apps were there. Pages can import Word documents, and share as Word documents. Same with Numbers and Excel documents, and Keynote and Powerpoint documents! So basically everyone with an Apple ID has a free version of an excellent Word/Excel/Powerpoint compatible office suite in the cloud! This is NOT GOOD for Microsoft!

Microsoft should be seriously concerned. Microsoft Office is a core business for Microsoft. A business which has been virtually unassailable until Google Docs and now Apple iWork for iCloud.

I have noted that many more businesses are offering BYOD for not only smartphones and tablets but computers as well. While the initial investment is high the total cost of ownership for Apple is becoming much more competitive all the time and may even favor Apple in many circumstances now.

i read few days ago about the rumors of iWork and iLife apps to be free on iOS, if yes then i don't see any point it to be using from iOS Safari.

I expect this would be true since this would massively drive hardware adoption in the enterprise. Curious that no pricing information was offered about Mavericks at the preview event. Perhaps they didn't want to tip their hat?

I expect this would be true since this would massively drive hardware adoption in the enterprise. Curious that no pricing information was offered about Mavericks at the preview event. Perhaps they didn't want to tip their hat?

I think its possible they would make iOS apps such as iWork suit and iLife suit free but i don't see that happening with OS X apps… i can be wrong though.

i'm seriously locked in already with apple's eco system and what they are doing now with that i can see more n more people locking in. is that good or bad?

I can't wait to get live programming on the apple tv without the subscriptions… that would be cool. but i guess this topic is for other forum.

Doesn't work from iPad. Sad really that Apple can't work out running the iCloud web site on iPad.

It's not meant to be used from the iDevices because you can create and access the docs with the iPad iWork apps. Use the iCloud if you have a PC or Mac (with no iWork programs) and you need to access the docs.

"That (the) world is moving so quickly that iOS is already amongst the older mobile operating systems in active development today." — The Verge

Microsoft should be seriously concerned. Microsoft Office is a core business for Microsoft. A business which has been virtually unassailable until Google Docs and now Apple iWork for iCloud.

Although a lot of companies are now using Google Docs and MS Office 365, MS Office still has many features that aren't available online. Mainly scripts, Visual Basic, snicker if you must but I have seen entire departments in fortune 500 companies build their entire infrastructure on Excel using mind blowingly long scripts to do calculations and automated tasks. Simple word processing is easily done online but the second your document needs data from a database like Oracle and/or you're sending out 1,000s of letters using a script that not only creates the Doc with info from said database but then then attaches the Doc to an Email and sends it out to only the customers who live in California because the people in Texas need other info, well Google Docs just ain't goin to handle that.

I love reading about how MS Office is doomed because of all of these online services or Apple Pages or LibreOffice, whatever, the truth is MS Office is a viable solution for a whole lot of people who aren't just typing up a thank you letters and graduation speeches.

When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.

I don't know. I have several documents that use fonts other than Apple's "built-in" ones. Unless they can devise a way around the licensing issues that are certainly involved with syncing fonts with the document, I would never use this day-to-day.

Yes, I think the main point of the article is that memory is an issue on mobile devices and Javascript doesn't allow you to address that. I would question how well Google Docs runs when you start adding images to your documents, and you are using a mobile device, but I will have to take your word for it as I do all my wordprocessing in Word on a Windows PC (even the native version of Pages doesn't match up with Word for me).

Here's to another innovative product that hopefully tries to beat Google. The demo at WWDC was interesting. Now for the reviews to show up to see how smooth it really is.

It will never beat Google but for Apple users this definitely a nice service. Personally I don't think I'll use it because most of the people I collaborate with on Office 365 and Google Docs don't have a Apple ID.

When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.

Wizard69, I called Apple about that a couple of hours ago. The representative said that he had heard that when iWork for iCloud is rolled out that the iCloud website will be available on iPads and iPhones. The people that currently have iWork for iPad or iPhone can test iWork for iCloud using those apps. They are still saying it will launch for everyone sometime in Fall 2013. We had no need to purchase those apps because we rarely needed to share documents away from our office. However it will be nice on the rare occasions we would want to do this. This will continue to eat away at Microsoft for sure.

As a high school teacher I would LOVE it if my students made their presentations using Keynote rather than GoogleDocs. Google's preso software is hideous. I used to use PowerPoint exclusively. Now I use Keynote whenever I can. It's so much better looking. That said, it has been WAY too long since they'd updated the iWork suite - and it needs some updating.

That said, it has been WAY too long since they'd updated the iWork suite - and it needs some updating.

I agree, it's been way too long. However, I would not be a bit surprised to see them add about 20% more features to iWork when it is released on the iCloud this Fall. Apple loves to surprise and delight... However, for Microsoft it may be surprise and horrify.

"That (the) world is moving so quickly that iOS is already amongst the older mobile operating systems in active development today." — The Verge

It will never beat Google but for Apple users this definitely a nice service. Personally I don't think I'll use it because most of the people I collaborate with on Office 365 and Google Docs don't have a Apple ID.

Wow!! You must collaborate with a bunch of pencil-necked geeks that don't use iTunes for anything!

"That (the) world is moving so quickly that iOS is already amongst the older mobile operating systems in active development today." — The Verge